john mcmullen a supplement for fuzion

John McMullen A Supplement for Fuzion

What is Tekeli-li!? 2Important notes 2Trademarks and copyrights 2Character Creation 2Overview 2Talents 2Madness 3Humanity [(Pre - Mythos) X 10] 3Soul [Will X 3] 3D20 Madness 3New Skills 3Rules Additions to Fuzion 4Going Mad 4Calculating Humanity losses 5Magic 6

Experience 6The Interlock option 6The World of Tekeli-li! 6Motifs 7Tomes 7Magic 8Cults 9Bestiary 10Why Create Your Own Creatures? 10Format 10Cults 11Tainted Races 11Autarch Races 13Servant Races 15

Unutterable Creatures 17Adventures 18The Echo Out of Time 18Shambler in the Stairwell 18Fire Flies 18The Dead of Winter 19The Mark of the Beast 19Frameworks 19It’s a long conspiracy 19The organization 19“I represent Mr. Smith...” 19Using Other RPG Resources 19Designer Notes 20To Do 21Index 22

2

“The universe is not only queerer than we imagined, it is queerer than we can imagine.” —J. B. S. Haldane

What is Tekeli-li!?

This is a role-playing supplement to run Lovecraftian horror using Fuzion™ or D20. The horror is the kind one gets with Call of Cthulhu®, in either incarnation. Horror games, in other words, but a particular kind of horror: something slow, insidious, and wrong. It is not mad slashers chasing nubile teenagers; it is encounters with things that drive humans mad, and risking insanity to banish those things.

In H.P. Lovecraft’s fiction, Earth is an exception. The laws here are not the same as the laws Out There, and we, who have evolved in this benign environment, cannot stand the harsh light of reality.

Important notes

This is not, of course, a role-playing system for Lovecraft specifically; that’s under trademark and I have not licensed it. Oh, you could convert published CoC material to it (see “Using Other RPG Resources” on page 34) but I’m not saying you have to. I will be adding D20 versions of the spells and beasts, so you could also use them with the out-of-print D20 Call of Cthulhu. Again, I’m not saying you have to.

Also, this is a supplement: you will need the basic Fuzion rules, either in printed form (available from R. Talsorian Games) or in PDF (available at http://www.talsorian.com/software/fuzion.pdf).

Trademarks and copyrights

Tekeli-li! written by John McMullen, December 2002, modified and added to March 2006 and January 2008.

The following are acknowledged as copyrights and trademarks of others, and no infringement is intended by their use here.

Call of Cthulhu is Chaosium’s registered trademark for its roleplaying game set in the worlds of H. P. Lovecraft, copyright 1981, 1983, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1998.

Fuzion is the FUZION Labs Group™ trademark for its multigenre game system. Core Fuzion is copyright 2002 by R. Talsorian Games.

D20 is copyright 2002 by Wizards of the Coast.

Character Creation

This section describes how to create a character for a Tekeli-li! adventure or campaign.

Some of the material in this section will not make sense until after you’ve read the rules additions for Fuzion. (If I placed those first, some of it wouldn’t make sense until you had read the character creation section.)

Overview

Tekeli-li! uses the standard Fuzion characteristics (Intelligence, Will, Presence, and so on). It adds two new characteristics (Madness and Soul), modifies the derived characteristic Humanity (described in the Fuzion rules), and adds two new skills (Mythos and Rationalization).

A typical Tekeli-li! campaign uses characters built on 40 Characteristic Points and 40 Option points, with up to 40 more Option points in Complications. That’s sufficient for characters to average 4 in each primary characteristic: very competent but not yet heroic. Guns and other humans are still a threat to the characters.

Quickly:

• Characters have the additional characteristic of “Madness” which starts at 13.

• With the GM’s permission, players can buy the skill “Rationalization” for the normal cost, but each level of Rationalization will also raise the character’s Madness level by one. Maximum Rationalization for a beginning character is normally 2.

• There is an additional skill called “Mythos” which is not available at the beginning of the game and must start with a value of 0.

• There is no “Humanity Defense.”

Talents

The loss of Humanity is important in Tekeli-li! Accordingly, there is no Talent (or power) for Humanity Defense, and there is no Talent such as “strong-minded” that will affect a character’s Madness. Ask the GM if the Talent “Eidetic Memory” has unpleasant side effects (outlined in “Madness” on page 4).

A psionic character in Tekeli-li! is defined as a “sensitive.” Being a sensitive costs 5 OP. A sensitive automatically adds 2 to his or her starting Madness, and a character may become a sensitive after a bout of Mythos-related insanity. A sensitive is presumed to be artistic and delicate, and gets +2 to all artistic tasks and +1 to Mythos-related tasks, since they have a greater innate vulnerability to the Mythos.

Tekeli-li! March 2007

3

Madness

Madness is a measure of your insanity. It is a difficulty to test against, and it starts at 13. It can grow indefinitely. (If it helps, you might think of it as something separate from the character, an inner self he or she wrestles with.) A player only tests Madness when encountering something truly horrific, something that is utterly outside their normal sphere of experience. The more times you fail to conquer your Madness, the more difficult it becomes to conquer.

Your base Madness is 13 plus your level of Mythos skill (Mythos skill is explained below). Each time you fail a Madness check, your Madness increases; these increases can be erased by therapy or by visibly defeating the creatures and agents of the Mythos.

Some Complications may add to the difficulty of Madness rolls under certain circumstances. This is up to the GM.

At the GM’s discretion, psionic powers or the Talent “Eidetic Memory” may add 5 to a character’s Madness; one of the themes of this sort of fiction is that failure to remember is a blessing, not a curse.

Humanity [(Pre - Mythos) X 10]

Humanity is as described in the core Fuzion rules, but it’s calculated slightly differently. Humanity is calculated as (PRE - Mythos) X10. The higher your Mythos skill, the lower your maximum possible Humanity. Most people have a Humanity of 10-30; saints could go up to 70.

When making rolls to attempt Mythos tasks, your character can “burn” Humanity to help ensure that the task succeeds. Each Humanity roll is +1 to the roll. The limit is normally the character’s Mythos skill, but the GM might approve higher expenditures.

As in the core rules, every 10 points of Humanity lost is -1 to all PRE-related when dealing with things of this earth (people and animals).

Characters can regain Humanity in the same way as Madness can be reduced: by therapy or by visibly defeating the creatures and agents of the Mythos.

At 0 Humanity, a character is precariously balanced. At -10 Humanity a character goes permanently insane, and control is given to the GM.

Soul [Will X 3]

Soul reflects how much magic a character can perform. It is calculated identically to Resistance, 3 X WILL.

When a character’s Soul drops to zero, the character falls unconscious. Attempting to cast a magic spell never lowers a character’s Soul below zero, but the GM may

invent malicious curses or spells cast by others that do so. If some mechanism subtracts fur-ther Soul points, the character’s body may live, but his or her spirit is gone. The character is effectively dead at -10 Soul.

It’s up to GMs whether it’s possible to revive a person dead from loss of Soul. At the least, this should involve a horrific ritual.

D20 Madness

This mechanic could be used instead of the D% Sanity mechanic. A character’s Madness starts at 20-(Wisdom+Mythos ranks). The character makes a Will roll against the Madness. Madness increases when a character reads a Mythos-related tome, or when a character fails a Madness check.

New Skills

Most of the skills in Core Fuzion are present in the world of Tekeli-li!, and a few new ones.

Absent Skills

Since there is very little traditional RPG magic, the skills of Sorcery and Clerecy do not exist. (GMs may wish to introduce skills such as Voodoo or Witchcraft or Navajo Skinwalker Magic.) Psionics skill may exist, but the forms of psionics available are vastly reduced: most psionics in a Tekeli-li! campaign will be “sensitives” who are vulnerable to Madness.

Mythos Skill

Mythos is your knowledge and ability to deal with the Mythos. It starts at 0 and functions as a skill—INT+Mythos is your chance to know something about the Mythos without doing further research. WILL+Mythos is your chance to cast Mythos spells. (The GM may require binding spells to use PRE+Mythos.)

You cannot make a Mythos skill check without at least one point in Mythos.

No character starts with Mythos skill (so it is always paid for using the Experience rules). There are two in-game ways to increase your Mythos skill:

• Research through Mythos-related tomes—experience points already saved and cost paid for in standard way (5 OP x the new level: 5, 10, 15, 20, and so on up until 35). This will lower your Humanity.

• Insanity—cost paid by the accumulation of appropriate Complications (see “Going Mad,” below). A character who goes temporarily insane does not

March 2008 Tekeli-li!

4

necessarily gain Mythos skill. The player can refuse to take additional Complications to pay for any insights.

The more Mythos you know, the harder it is to stay sane. Mythos is also involved in calculating your maximum Humanity (which can be negative), and it’s involved in calculating your Madness, a derived Characteristic. As soon as a character improves Mythos, maximum possible Humanity drops. If the character’s current Humanity is above the new maximum, it is lowered too, but the character need not go insane.

Players should record the spells they learn and research; no amount of Mythos skill will help a player cast a spell if he or she hasn’t yet learned it.

Rationalization Skill

Rationalization is your ability to fit odd or unbelievable items into your current world-view. It’s used when making a Madness check. Normally one rolls WILL+Rationalization.

Most people don’t need to develop a rationalization skill since they ignore or don’t encounter the odd and unbelievable. Normally it is developed through psychotherapy.

A beginning character should have no more than 2 in Rationalization, and that should indicate a very troubled mental past and subsequent therapy. At character creation, the GM may request that the Madness level be increased by 1 for each point in Rationalization.

Example: Gabriel Rowan is a petrochemical geologist called back home after the mysterious death of his father. He has INT 5, WILL 4, PRE 3. His Madness is 13, because he’s a starting character. His starting Humanity is 30, and his Soul is 12.

Because the player wants a character with a troubled past, he asks the GM to allow 2 points of Rationalization (reflecting past therapies; there’s a reason Gabe picked a career that would take him far from home). The GM agrees, but she says that Gabe’s player must up his Madness to 15 to reflect these troubles and must take a Complication to reflect it. Gabe’s player picks “Hypochondriac” which might give some interesting roleplaying possibilities.

After purchasing skills and so forth, Gabe looks like this:

Characteristics: INT 5 WILL 4 PRE 3 TECH 5 REF 3 DEX 4 STR 3 CON 4 BODY 4 MOVE 5 (40 pts). His figured characteristics are MAD 15 SD 8 STUN 20 HITS 20 REC 7 HUM 30 SOUL 12 RES 12.

Skills: Mechanics 3, Survival 2, Surveying 3, Bribery 1, Education +4, Spanish 4, Italian 5, Sci: Geology 3, Sci: Chemistry 4, Sci: Engineering 4, Jack of all Trades 3, Drive 2, Computers 3, Hand-to-Hand +1, Evasion +1, Marksmanship 2, Perception +2, Rationalization 2, Concentration +2, Mythos 0 (51 pts) Other Options: Wealth 3 (3 pts)

Complications: Family responsibilities—guilt because believes self responsible for mother’s death ((5+15)/2=10); Hypochondriac ((10+10)/5=4)

Rules Additions to Fuzion

Most of the rules additions for Fuzion deal with the new Characteristics Madness, Humanity, and Soul.

Going Mad

When your character encounters something beyond the pale, make a Madness check

The process of checking Madness is described below:

Checking Madness

1. Make a Madness check of WILL+Rationalization vs. current Madness. If it succeeds, the GM will tell you if you still lose Humanity and how much.

2. If it fails: • Roll to see how much Humanity you’ve lost; the

GM will tell you how many dice to roll. • Add one to your Madness

3. If you’ve lost more Humanity than your PRE, you are temporarily insane for 1d6 hours for each point over your PRE. Let the GM control your character briefly.

If you’ve lost more than half your remaining Humanity (even if that’s less than your PRE), you are indefinitely insane. Select a new Complication. You should put the points from that Complication towards Mythos skill.

Example: Gabe has gone to the ancestral tomb to investigate fragmentary memories of his father recently uncovered by therapy. The whippoorwills fall silent as he unlocks the heavy doors decorated with peeling gilt. Inside he finds the most recent graves open, the bones scattered, and his father’s desiccated corpse on the ground in an attitude of supplication.

Gabe must make a Madness roll. His Madness is 15, his WILL is 4, and he has a Rationalization skill of 2. He rolls 3d6+6 against the difficulty of 15, and rolls an 6: bad luck for Gabe. He loses Humanity and his Madness increases to 16.


5

Since the evidence is indirect, the GM asks Gabe’s player to roll 1D6 to determine loss of Humanity. He rolls a 3, exactly Gabe’s PRE. He lowers Gabe’s Humanity to 27.

If the player rolls a critical failure (a roll of 3), the character loses maximum Humanity for the situation. Had Gabe’s player rolled a 3, Gabe would have lost 6 points of Humanity.

When you lose more then your PRE in Humanity, you go temporarily insane. Temporary insanity lasts 1d6 hours for each point lost over your PRE. When you lose half your remaining Humanity, you go insane for longer: 2d6 months.

Normally once something has driven you to a Madness check, you’re inured to it for the course of the adventure (subject to GM’s call). However, new information may bring the horror of the events back to you, calling for another check.

Example: Panting with fear, Gabe bends to examine the long bones scattered about the tomb. He succeeds at a Notice roll and realizes that the bones show signs of being gnawed, and that the tooth marks match his father’s teeth.

Gabe’s player checks again against Madness (this time a difficulty of 16), and has a critical failure, rolling a 3. He loses 6 points of Humanity, which is more than his PRE of 3. Gabe’s player marks Gabe’s Humanity down to 21, and Gabe runs from the tomb, gibbering with fear and leaving the door wide open. His temporary insanity will last 3d6 hours. (And twelve hours later, Gabe becomes aware that he is naked in a slaughterhouse, covered in pig’s blood, with no memory of how he got there.)

Insanity in Tekeli-li! may be temporary, indefinite, or permanent. Temporary insanities go away, but they may leave scars (Complications; see below). Indefinite insanity (losing more than half your remaining Humanity) definitely leaves scars. Permanent insanity puts the character under the GM’s control forever.

If the character gained Mythos knowledge from the insanity, the character gains Complications to pay for the new Mythos knowledge. Usually a character gains Psychological Complications, Phobias, or Compulsive Behaviors, but could conceivably gain Personality Traits (“disbelieves in supernatural”) and Responsibilities (“vows to hunt down ‘things’”) or even Physiological Complications (“gouged out one eye while in throes of madness”). The new Complication should be appropriate in some way to the circumstances of the insanity.

These additional Complications are usually minor in game terms.

Example: Gabe delved into his father’s occult library for some hint as to the family’s ancient curse. Unfortunately, the reading drove him insane, and Gabe’s player doesn’t have 5 OP to buy the 1 point of Mythos skill.

So his player looks at the list of Complications and decides that Gabe is now obsessed with the strange events going on.

He will be reckless in his attempts to investigate and all conversations will eventually lead there, even when it isn’t appropriate. This happens more than once a session (Constantly, 15 pts), and it’s a Strong compulsion (10 pts). This has no effect on combat skills, so it’s Minor (25/5=5). Perhaps later, therapy will help Gabe...

Normally the GM dictates what happens to the character during temporary insanity, but the GM may choose to let players describe the results, so long as it’s still entertaining and fair to the rest of the group.

Note: Some Fuzion games have an advantage called “Humanity Defense” which reduces the amount of Humanity lost. Tekeli-li! does not have this advantage, and in the Tekeli-li! universe it doesn’t work.

Calculating Humanity losses

Your character loses Humanity in encounters with these Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. Failing a Madness check causes a character to lose Humanity; sometimes even succeeding a Madness check still causes a character to lose Humanity, so horrific are the creatures of the Mythos.

The GM should recognize that different situations call for different levels of Humanity loss:

• Trivial. Indirect evidence that doesn’t personally affect the character. The important thing is the cap: in case of a critical failure, the GM doesn’t feel that this would result in a temporary insanity. Normally 1d2 or 1d3.

• Minor. This loss of Humanity may drive “normal” people temporarily mad, but player characters are usually made of sterner stuff. Normally 1d6, 1d6-1 or 1d6+1. Direct evidence of humans acting in a loathsome manner or indirect evidence that points to the character or the character’s family in some way. Discovering the truth of one’s ancestry, for example, or viewing creatures that are reasonably human-like, such as ghuls.

• Significant. Most people will be driven temporarily insane by this, if they succumb to madness at all. 2d6, possibly 2d6-1. Some Humanity loss is to be expected


6

even if the character succeeds at the Madness check, usually 1 to 1d3.

• Major. Madness is almost sure to follow: 3d6, and may follow even if the character succeeds at the Madness check (1d6 loss even for successful Madness check). In the normal run of events, a character loses at most 3d6.

• Catastrophic. Some entities are worse and may instantly drive a human mad; seeing them is worth 5d6 (average loss 17) or more.

On a critical failure, you lose maximum Humanity for that encounter.

When performing Mythos skill tasks, you can “burn” Humanity to improve your chances, but you can never burn more Humanity than your Skill level. (And some Mythos tasks will cost Humanity anyway.)

Therapy and recovering humanity

Therapy will help you recover. Your Madness is the difficulty the therapist has to beat. Successful therapy has one of two effects: You can gain back 2d6 Humanity or erase one point of temporary Madness, player’s choice. (Your Madness can never go below 13+Mythos.) Normally one rolls for therapy every month, and the character has an extended stay away from all things unnatural.

If the therapist fails the roll, the character loses 1d3 Humanity, and the therapist must succeed at a Madness roll or lose 1d3 Humanity.

If for some reason the therapy is being tried in the midst of some Mythos-related activity (“Snap him out of it! He’s the only one who knows the spell!”), add 10 to the character’s Madness for the purposes of the therapy roll.

Magic

A character may cast any spell he or she knows, given the time, material components, and Soul points. The difficulty of the spell is determined by the GM; the acting value is WILL+Mythos. A player can increase the chances of success by “burning” Humanity points, up to a maximum of one’s Mythos skill. (Yes, you can guarantee temporary insanity this way.)

Note that Mythos spells can work without an understanding of the Mythos (that is, with no Mythos skill).

Most spells have a difficulty between 10 and 21; additional tactics may be used to improve the chances of a spell working. (GMs should be liberal with these, since it’s often the fate of the world at stake.) Some spells require a WILL vs. WILL roll, which is the Caster’s WILL (plus possibly Mythos) versus the target’s WILL (plus possibly Concentration). The use of skills in a WILL vs. WILL roll is

up to the GM, but ideally will depend on whether the target is aware of the attack.

A spell will cost Soul points. Soul points regenerate after a night’s sleep. (Dreaming is an important part of the character’s connection to magic.)

Example: A thing has possessed the corpse of Gabe’s father, and Gabe has managed to trap the desiccated clattering horror in the bedroom. He has learned a dismissal spell in his father’s old copy of Affari dei Mostros, and casts it.

Since Gabe now has a Mythos of 2, the player decides to burn two additional Humanity points to make his acting value WILL + Mythos + 2, or 4 + 2 + 2 = 8. The difficulty is 18, so he further decides he will take an hour to prepare for it and cast it instead of 20 minutes, for an additional +1 to his skill. He rolls a 9—and succeeds. Gabe’s player subtracts 3 Soul points from his total, and 2 more points from his Humanity.

Experience

Experience is given out as described in the Fuzion rules. A successful end to the adventure (in which the plans of the horrors are defeated or averted) should also be accompanied by a reward of Humanity or a decrease in Madness or both.

Example: Since he defeated the horror, the GM gives out experience points, and tells Gabe he can erase 1 point of Madness and regain 6 points of Humanity.

The Interlock option

I’m assuming 3d6 rolls; if you are using the Interlock option, subtract 5 from difficulties mentioned here. Base Madness becomes 8+Mythos; foxhole therapy adds 5 to the existing Madness, not 10.

The World of Tekeli-li!

The world of Tekeli-li! is inspired by the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. It is, however, largely empty, waiting for you to put your stamp on it. How do you create this world?

You can use materials straight from the existing Cthulhu Mythos. (See Using Other RPG Resources on page 19.) Advantages to this:

• Lots of material already exists • Material created by many different people so there

are some startling differences— it doesn’t have a sense of “sameness” that can be boring

• Many players already familiar with the background


7

Or you can create new equivalents to Lovecraft’s creations. This is a lot of work (though you don’t have to do it all at once) but it, too, has its advantages:

• Players uncertain: they have no way of knowing (for example) that the book Liber Mortis is roughly equivalent to the Necronomicon, and when they ask about the Necronomicon, you calmly explain that that’s something an author named H. P. Lovecraft wrote about and they can find a knockoff in the used book store.

• Tuned to what scares your players (perhaps the dehumanization of spiritual possession doesn’t bother you, but dehumanization through computers does)

Motifs

Lovecraft’s stories display a number of recurring themes and elements that you may or may not want to play up. Tekeli-li! accepts the basics: the universe is fundamentally unknowable and to know the truth will drive humans mad.

• In the nature vs. nurture argument, heredity—“bad blood”—will win out.

• It is possible for people to degenerate under stress, especially if they have bad blood.

• Certain groups or cults are degenerate in nature; they are “less evolved.”

• Since the universe is unknowable, the monsters are largely indescribable.

• Possession, either by magicians or alien intelligences.• Cannibalism.Your group may find other things frightening; or you may want to bring these themes into the 21st century. (The current discussion of genetic markers for some traits sounds very much like Lovecraft’s belief.)

Tomes

To get you started, here are some books and other sources that contain Mythos material in the world of Tekeli-li! They are given in approximate order of age. Reading any of these books requires a Madness check. Spells are

suggested for some tomes, but the GM is free to set the contents.

Book Description HUM

The Owl Fragments

Unidentified fragments discussing a race of bird-people, found in Greenland, dated ca. 720.

0/1d3

Nekrognosis Greek book of the dead reputed to be Greek translation of older Egyptian text. Two editions are known, one from before 900, one from 1570s. Only one copy of the older text is known; it is in private hands and has never been compared to the newer text. Six copies are known of the newer text. Others may exist.

2/2d6

Eruditio Mortis Translation of Nekrognosis into the Latin supposedly by the Comte de Ste-Germaine. Not to be confused with illuminated Liber Mortis, the Dublin Manuscript.

1/1d6+1

Liber Mortis (Dublin manuscript), illuminated “Book of the Dead” in Latin, written by “Brother Clavis” circa 1130. One original exists (at Trinity College in Dublin) but ten facsimile copies are available throughout the world.

0/1d6

Affari dei Mostros

Transl. from a Greek original by unnamed Italian monk approx 1430. Exists only in translation.

1/1d6

Traffick with Angels

Collection of spells and incantations supposedly used by Edmund Kelley, published 1601 by a Venetian press.

0/1d3

Signs of the Red Worm

Folio reprint of documents apparently meant for witch-hunters, in English. Folio circa 1690.

0/1d6

Blasphemous Judges

A misprint of the Bible printed circa 1750; sections of Judges and Deuteronomy misprinted and containing hideous ceremonies and information.

1/1d6

The Brown Book

A volume whose pages drive men mad, origin unknown but post printing press.

1/1d6+3

Cyclopes of the Sea

A discussion of odd tribal customs and worship of gods throughout the oceans of the world, written by Olaf Kringhaus, 1878.

0/1d6


8

Magic

Magic in Tekeli-li! is not like most RPG magic. Some magic makes use of a deep understanding of the universe—that is, an insane understanding of the universe. While you can find “death spells” in Tekeli-li! they will cause madness. Because of this, magical acts are often done through alien servants, often described in old grimoires as “demons” or “angels.” The principal types of spells are:

• Summon/dismiss spells, one for each kind of creature • Binding spells, one for each kind of creature • Curses • Create enchanted object • Possession or soul destroying spellsNote that Mythos knowledge is not necessarily required to cast spells of the “Blight Crop” variety, known by witches and sorcerers for ages. If a Will vs. Will contest is required, the caster can add Mythos knowledge, and the defender can add Concentration.

Groups can cast many spells, each member of the group adding at least one Soul point to the spell, but never more than the principal caster.

Blight Crop. Given some personal element of the farmer or owner of the land, it withers all crops on that land. HUM Cost: 0 Soul: 3

Call Storm. Doubles severity of an existing (or potential) storm for each three Soul points invested, so long as conditions for a storm already exist; can be used on a

storm created using Create Storm. HUM Cost: 0 Soul: 3 (or multiple thereof)

Create Storm. Creates a storm where conditions do not exist. HUM Cost: 1d3 SOUL: 5

Curdle. Spoils any specific stored fluid, such as milk, beer, or wine. HUM Cost: 0 SOUL: 1 pt for the first gallon/four litres, doubling for each point after that.

Debt Of Facelessness. The caster makes a deal with Lost Rawmel to take on the appearance of someone else. Sooner or later Rawmel collects, taking some aspect of the caster’s personality or appearance, which may then be given to someone else.

Dismiss [Being Name Here]: Dismisses a being. Some spells only work if the being is already trapped; others work all the time. Some versions remove the creature (against its will) from the immediate area (a continent, say) and others remove the creature from this plane of existence. HUM Cost: Varies with being SOUL: 8

Dream Of Hermes. Send messages through dreams. SOUL: 2

Failure To Thrive. Causes target to waste away; requires a Will roll versus the target’s Will is required.Costs several animal sacrifices. HUM: 1d3 SOUL: 6

Forecast. A thousand different forms, but they all involve receiving clues about the future. SOUL: 0

Imprison Animal Spirit. Imprison an animal spirit, but there aren’t a lot of uses for that…unless the container you use happens to be a human being, in which case they become a kind of lycanthrope. HUM: 1d3 SOUL: 9

Incendiary Death. Causes the target to burn up as a kind of spontaneous combustion. HUM: 1d6 SOUL: 9

Inflame Desire. A love philtre with additional complications. It’s actually closely related to Incendiary Death and an overdose can have similar results, but the person will die in the act of intercourse, almost certainly killing partner(s) too. SOUL: 4

Invite [Being Name Here]. Not actually a summoning spell (though often presented as such), it’s an invitation to be possessed by the spirit involved. You might use it if, say, you were trying to create an offspring of Cwoom who will then destroy the world… SOUL: varies from 5-15, depending on spirit

Oath of Ghazlik. A ritual that moves creativity and one attribute to their highest peak (7) for a period of time. When the time ends, the caster is a vessel for Ghazlik or any entity Ghazlik decrees. (Since Ghazlik doesn’t often pay attention to humans, any repellent other being that wants to be in the caster’s body.) HUM: 2d6 SOUL: 9

Place Soul: Creates a small knot of thread that turns into a spider, steals the soul of the victim (Caster WILL vs.Victim WILL roll) and places it in the container provided. Usually

The Corpse Copse

A stereograph produced in the 1890s; viewing in stereo has unfortunate effects; said to be addictive and one viewer apparently claimed that things in the picture were coming for him.

1/1d6

Emperor of Mist and Sand

Bootleg of pop music demo cut by the Wolves of Nyethardiri, originally recorded on 8-track tape. Humanity loss is cumulative after first loss listening.

0/1d3

Circuits Never Rust

Internet document, anonymous author; apparently incoherent but discusses superiority of certain kinds of “recorded intelligence.” Versions differ, possibly due to transmission errors.

1/1d6

Book Description HUM


9

a precursor to using the body, but it can be reversed if the container is broken. HUM Cost: 1d3 SOUL: 4

Royal Gesture Of Ra. Allows the caster to dominate others so long as they remain in sight; the spell lowers the viewer’s effective resistance to domination. HUM: 1d3 SOUL: 4

Shield Of The Dead. The caster fashions an amulet from part of a corpse (an intact tooth, for example, or a square of skin at least two centimeters on a side); casting the spell costs Humanity and Soul. Hum Cost: 1d6+1 Soul: 6 The wearer of the amulet is mostly protected from damage: Damage taken by the wearer is passed along to the corpse, until the corpse is totally destroyed, when the amulet stops working. Each time the amulet works, it causes 1 point of damage to the wearer; this damage will heal normally but it will always scar. The amulet damage may take many forms: it may be welts, or geometric patterns, or a birthmark that grows with damage, revealing an unholy scene. Humanity loss to the wearer is proportional to the amount of damage the amulet protects against; normally, it is 1/10th the amount of damage, round down.

Skeletal Block. Swaps someone with their own dead skeleton from the future. If parts of the skeleton are destroyed, the original body part returns and seeks a kind of vengeance. Spell costs 1d6+1 Humanity for both caster and person displaced. SOUL: 12

Solomon’s Succubus. Steals Soul points from the target while he or she sleeps, and grants them extremely vivid dreams about the caster, typically involving intercourse (if appropriate) or wrestling. HUM Cost: 1d3 SOUL: 1d6

Soul Of A New Machine. Allows the caster to possess a machine. Can be used to imprison a soul in a machine, if the object is sufficiently unsophisticated that it makes a prison. HUM Cost: 1d6 SOUL: 1d6+1

Steal Body. A ritual carried out on Hallowmass that makes a Trade Minds exchange permanent. If the minds have been frequently exchanged (GM’s discretion) already, the ritual will work whether they are exchanged at the time of the ritual. Otherwise, the minds must already be exchanged at the time of the ritual. The ritual involves at least three people and an animal sacrifice. HUM Cost: 1d6 SOUL: 6

Steal Spirit. Removes the will to live (1d6 WILL drain). Typically cast upon a fetish of some sort, the drain lasts as long as the fetish exists. If the target’s WILL drops below 0, the target dies within a week. SOUL: 1d3

Summon [Creature Name Here]: Summons one of a race into a controlled place, usually a circle or some other

shape that has been specially prepared. HUM Cost: 1d3 SOUL: 3-15, depending on the creature and the race.

Trade Minds. Exchanges consciousnesses between minds. It requires no preparation once learned but it does require eye contact, and the length of time that minds are exchanged depends on the number of Soul points spent. The spell always costs as many Soul points as the target’s current Resistance value, and each additional two points spent increases the amount of time exchanged. Base time is one phase, and each additional two points moves the time one level up the time chart. It costs 1d6-1 Humanity to cast. It can be made permanent with the Steal Body ritual. Waking up in someone else’s body costs 1d6+2 Humanity. HUM Cost: 1d6 SOUL: Special

Cults

It is said that the most dangerous enemy of man is man. While cultists might be easy, cults are not, and show a surprising ability to survive the ages under new faces.

While this section doesn’t present all of the ways a cult can exist, it deals with a useful cult model for RPGs. (I stole this material from reading, and from Eden Studio’s Sub Rosa, and from Silven Publishing’s Secret Societies.)

• What is the cult’s purpose in your adventure?A cult that is intended to be a constant thorn in the side of the adventurers might need to be global in scale; another cult might be protecting a location and be smaller (but have sorcerers). Cults, like people, can be long-term or short-term adversaries. The answer to this question often determines the scale of the cult, whether there is an inner circle, and whether the cult knows magic

• What do they want?Few people are driven to create a society for self-destruction; the cultists must think that the cult will get them something, from money to power to sexual fulfilment to restoring the rightful king so things will be better.

• Is there a society within the society that knows a truth?The inner society might be quite, quite mad, but it hides inside the larger society—and cultists might actually be a help rather than a hindrance.

• What methods do they use?Do they strangle their victims with a yellow cloth, or prefer sacrifices? Do they even use murder—destroying someone socially might work better. (You can accuse anyone of being a pedophile, and even if they fight it,


10

people will still look at them oddly.) Maybe they love-bomb you.

• How is the cult organized?Are new members initiated? Where do they get new members?

• Where do they get money?Not every cult can have mysterious benefactors of a strange blood line; every cult needs money. Maybe the cult gets donations; maybe the cult is a loose organization of peers, where everyone is expected to pay his own way.

• Whom do they hate and love?Okay, love is a strong word, but who do they really feel strongly about? Who do they with? Do they know about other groups?

• Do they have magic?In this model, even organized crime counts as a kind of cult. Some cults will have magic, and some won’t.

Bestiary

The most significant danger comes from people: people worship these creatures, these things, and work for them even if the creatures are not free to work unless summoned.

Creatures come in four kinds: the Tainted, Autarchs, the Servant Races, and the Unutterable. There may be other subdivisions in your game, and the distinctions between kinds may not be clear.

TAINTED. Tainted creatures are not necessarily affiliated with the others, but serve as markers of their presence. Some family bloodlines are intertwined with the Tainted creatures and members of those families may in fact degenerate into Tainted beings. For example, the ghuls are hyena-like cannibals who frequent places of the dead searching for food. They seem to have been with us always. They appear to have religion but no families—no one has ever observed an infant ghul. It may be that they start as humans and through unspeakable actions revert to the ancestral line.

Seeing a member of the Tainted without preparation is usually a Minor Humanity loss; a group of characters should be able to defeat a small number of Tainted.

AUTARCHS. These races do not seem to be under control of any other races. They are encountered haphazardly, generally without the interference of human wizards or cults.

SERVANT RACES. These races are under the control of the Unutterable. They rarely come to Earth of their own free will but spells to summon and control them may be given as a gift to loyal cultists. Seeing a member of the Tainted without preparation is usually a Significant or Major Humanity loss, 2d6 or 3d6; a group of characters may be able to defeat a single member of a servant race, but usually cannot.

THE UNUTTERABLE. The Unutterable may have factions of different power within them, but they do not come to Earth—they cannot, except when conditions are right. They are beings of unimaginable power, and it is often the goal of their worshippers to bring them here. The ones who are concerned with Earth often communicate through dreams. Other Unutterable forces may have no concern with Earth at all, but can be summoned in some form or another, usually with disastrous results for the humans concerned. The Unutterable cannot be defeated if they fully manifest; seeing one is a Catastrophic Humanity loss, 5d6 or more.

Why Create Your Own Creatures?

There are a number of good reasons for creating new creatures in a game of Tekeli-li!

• To introduce a new section of Mythos, often as a means of introducing a particular kind of horror.

• To threaten players in a new way • To create a new challenge • To satisfy the conditions of a particular adventure (if

you have already established that Snow Leeches never exist above freezing temperatures, you will need a new creature for the session set in the Bahamas)

• To shake up players who have become complacent and are sure they know everything Although a species may be identified as a servant, it may act independently on earth for some reason, or the appropriate spells may have been learned by someone independent of a cult for the “ruler.”

• There aren’t many in this documentThat said, the information about the creatures here should be contradictory. The PCs shouldn’t know that moss on its own has (or doesn’t have) a mind; the PCs shouldn’t know that the numbers define the monster. The numbers are for the convenience of the GM.

And everything here can be changed. The players have seen this? Then make the snow leeches intelligent, or make bone maggots erupt from the bodies of leukemia patients, or have ghuls run a meat-packing plant, or

Format

Each creature is introduced by a bit of descriptive text, followed by a more thorough description. The Characteristics follow, along with any special abilities or


11

attacks. For creatures who are members of a race, Characteristics are representative, not absolute. Characteristics may vary significantly; do not be afraid to alter them to suit your needs.

Standard Characteristics are given; if a particular derived Characteristic is not given, it is derived normally. (Derived Characteristics are given if they are not the values one would expect.) Characteristics may indicate a range, but the right-hand column is a set of “typical” combat statistics.

Last come alternative names by which the creature might be referred to in Mythos texts. Typically each text has its own way of referring to a creature, so feel free to make up more names.

Cults

The Order of Ascension

The Order of Ascension is a human potential group on the outside; the inner circle believes that summoning Ghazlik is the path to righteousness. When Ghazlik comes, all humanity will reach the peak of their creativies, thinks the cult. High-placed members of the cult might have made the Oath of Ghazlik.

Black Palms

Worshippers of Nyethardiri

Fans of Scar Tissue

Class Reunion of 1927

Tainted Races

Ghuls

“It was short, for a man, because it was not a man: sparse coarse hairs covered its skin; its muzzle was blunt and powerful, like a hyena’s. Sharp teeth were visible.”

Hyena-like creatures that feast on the human dead. Rumors of them have persisted for millennia. They do use simple tools such as levers or knives.

Ghuls

INT 1-5 Hum Cost 0/1d3

WILL 2-7 AV 5

PRE 8 DV 4

REF 4 ARMOR 3

DEX 4 HITS 25

TECH 1-3 Attacks Claws: Str in DC KillingBite: Str-1 in DC Killing

STR 6

CON 4 TRAVEL Run, slow tunnelling

BODY 5 2423

StealthPerceptionClimblingConcealment

MOVE 6

Difficulty 18 Con+Athletics task to avoid infection from a ghul bite.

AKA: Stalkers, Demons, Sepulchral Lurkers

Moss From Tirnos

“And as the boat pulled away, we turned a light on it, and saw at the oars a nodding pile of moss, shaped roughly like a man.”

A gray moss that is extremely contagious and eventually replaces the entire body. Last to go is the human intelligence, which is later replaced by some other entity. Bright sunlight inhibits its growth and its spores cannot survive immersion in seawater, though once the infection has taken place saline has no effect.

The infection has three stages: Initial (in which a portion of the body has been turned into moss, and may be eliminated by amputation or burning); consumptive (in which the entire body has been turned to moss and there is no cure, but the body may still be animate and mobile—in the early part of this stage, human volition may remain, but by the end, the moss has control); and terminal (in which the body has been reduced to an immobile lump of moss). It’s worth noting that the moss is edible, even though that will speed up the infection.

Moss from Tirnos

INT 1-5 Hum Cost 0/1d3; 1/1d3 for animate moss

WILL 4-10 AV 3-7

PRE 8 DV 1-5


12

NOTES Roll CON+Concentration vs. a difficulty of 18 on each exposure; failure means infection

AKA: Gray visitor

Junkies

“Four more of the homeless men grabbed Brown. He thrashed at them, pulling at the layers of discarded clothes that wrapped them, trying to get a grip. One’s vest and undershirts tore, and litter poured out: empty cans and crumpled bags and plastic rings from soda pop, damp footprint-stained papers and apple cores and knots of discarded audio tape. There was nothing else inside the clothes. He tore away the scarf that covered its face and rusty tin can lids bit at his hand, drawing blood.”

They look like homeless people, wrapped in layers and layers of discarded clothes, but unwrapping them reveals there is only trash within. They may be something that feeds on homeless people or they may be what discarded people become in an area with heavy Mythos activity. They cannot be destroyed without magic, only dispersed to reform.

Their bite has two effects: it cuts (1 DC of killing damage) and drains the spirit (here represented as 1d6 of Soul points and 1d6 of Constitution points). Of course, the usual consequences of tetanus and other infections may also occur.

Junkies


WILL 3-5 AV 5-9

PRE 6 DV 3-8

REF 3-5 ARMOR 0

DEX 1-3 HITS 25-40 (to disperse) 30 (magical)

TECH 1-3 Attack Rusty bite: ;1d6 killing, 1d6 Soul drain, 1d6 Con drainClub: DC in STRSTR 6

CON 4-7 TRAVEL Walk

BODY 5-8 2423

Hand-to-HandScavengeStealthConcealment

MOVE 3-4

NOTES Unless you use magic, they can only be dispersed because junkies only animate garbage (treat as “desolid” or “insubstantial” if using the Heroic Abilities plug-in)

May know some magic spells ; mute.

AKA: Homeless, Lost Souls, Leeches

QuotiI

“He took off his gloves and his fingers were malformed, like talons, and it was not until he dropped his duster and spread his wings that Carson knew the man was not a man—but by then it was too late.”

The bird folk are somehow related to the raptors, hawks and owls. They claim us as their hunting grounds. Some say that once they could fly; others say that some of them still can. They are wary of us and mostly keep to themselves in small towns; some paleontologists note that birds are the living descendants of some of the dinosaurs.

They make an odd sort of whistling sound that identifies them, and they seem to beseech the Thunderbird in some way.

Quoti


WILL 2-5 AV 5

PRE 8 DV 4

REF 4 ARMOR 3

DEX 4 HITS 25

TECH 1-3 Attack Claws: Str in DC Killing

STR 6 Attack Bite: Str-1 in DC Killing

CON 4 TRAVEL Run, fly

BODY 5 2423


MOVE 6

AKA: Bird Folk, Hidden Dragons

REF 1-3 ARMOR 4 (distributed body)

DEX 1-5 HITS 50

TECH 1-2 Attacks Can wield clubs, swords, knives early on; infection (see note)

STR 1-4

CON 3-8 TRAVEL Slow walk

BODY 10 242

BrawlPerceptionClimblingMOVE 3

Moss from Tirnos Junkies


13

Autarch Races

Angles Out of Space

“The corner was green and yellow and it pulsed like a heart. Eden could no longer abide it and went to the kitchen to have a coffee, and when he looked in the corner of the kitchen, it was green—and it throbbed as a mouse was trapped it it.

“He knew then where the midnight meow had come from.”

Chaotic pulsing blobs of colour that fill corners and vertices and cause them to be non-Euclidean. They might provide a gateway to other worlds— or they simply eat the inhabitants.

Angle Out of Space

INT 2-5 Hum Cost 1/1d6+1

WILL 2-5 AV 5

PRE 8 DV 4

REF 4 ARMOR 3

DEX 4 HITS 25

TECH 1-3 Attack Claws: Str in DC Killing

STR 6 Attack Bite: Str-1 in DC Killing

CON 4 TRAVEL Teleport

BODY 5 2423


MOVE 6

AKA: Heart of the Eye

Bone Maggots“There were maybe hundred of them, small white writhing maggots. Cartington recoiled in disgust and then stepped on one to flatten it. It had some kind of hard shell, though the maggot could move it, for it seemed unaffected by him. He tried, again, and then it was gone, but there was a bleeding hole in his boot...: and then he screamed.”

Bone Maggots

INT 1 Hum Cost 0/1d3

WILL 3 AV 5

PRE 8 DV 4

REF 4 ARMOR 1

DEX 4 HITS 5

TECH 1-3 Attacks Bite: Str in DC Killing

STR 6

CON 4 TRAVEL Crawl

BODY 5 2423


MOVE 6

AKA: Burrowers, White Buboes

Echoes From Time

“A week after Singh commented that he shared a name with an historic personage, Miller saw mention of him while reviewing documents on the Roundhead Rebellion. Curious, Miller began to track mention of an Ahmed Singh through the ages and over the next few weeks found him described at events over the next three hundred and fifty years.”

When one of these spots you, usually through an enchanted time viewer, it takes your form and will travel up through history. The nature of the spell means that you gradually become aware of your doppelganger through history; you hear of someone very like you at historic locations and events, though people mentioning it. The only way to avoid the attack is to stay in a room that is entirely mirrored and has only flat planes, so there is an infinity of images for the Echo to choose from.

In combat, they have the appearance of the victim; each touch transfers some amount of the original to the doppelganger, slicing it away from the original but leaving them intact and riddled with holes.

Echoes from Time


WILL 5-8 AV 5

PRE 10 DV 5

REF 5 ARMOR 0

DEX 3-8 HITS 35

TECH 3-7 Attacks As original, plus:2 DC killing and drain 1d6 Soul per attack hand0to0handSTR 3-9

CON 3-9 TRAVEL Fast run

BODY 4-8 2423


MOVE 4-9

NOTES: Teleports through images; Hand-to-Hand STR and CON are victim’s + 2. Fooled by mirrors.

AKA: Doppelganger

Bone Maggots


14

Jhotas

“A strong triangular body supported by a single massive leg and two gorilla-like arms, and the whole of it without a head! As it moved towards me, far faster than a man on crutches, I could see that the broad shelf of shoulders supported no eyes or mouth, and as it reached for me, an enormous three-lipped maw opened in its chest. I screamed, and discharged my shotgun, and ran.”

The Jhotas are dwellers in certain deep caves that seem to be connected with a parallel dimension. They are ferocious if encountered. They seem to be involved in some kind of ancestor worship, and may be a degenerate form of one of the Servant races.

Jhota


WILL 4-9 AV 7-15

PRE 11 DV 6-14

REF 4-9 ARMOR 5

DEX 4-8 HITS 35-60

TECH 1-3 Attacks Grapple: Str in DC Non-lethalBite:/Claws: Str in KC killing

STR 8-12

CON 5-10 MOVEMENT Fast run

BODY 7-12 2423

BrawlPerceptionClimblingConcealment

MOVE 6

NOTES IR vision or “life sense”

AKA: Headless gorillas, cave demons

Lost Rawmel, Collector of Faces

“A traveller we took him for, of native mien but foreign garb.”

Lost Rawmel


WILL 7 AV 5

PRE 7 DV 4

REF 7 ARMOR 3

DEX 7 HITS 25

TECH 7 Attacks Claws: Str in DC Killing

STR 7

CON 12 TRAVEL Run, teleport

BODY 12 2423


MOVE 40

AKA: Collector of Faces, The Dark Traveller, the Man in Black

Scorpions of Hadh

Scorpions of Hadh


WILL 207 AV 5

PRE 8 DV 4

REF 4 ARMOR 3

DEX 4 HITS 25

TECH 1-3 Attack Claws: Str in DC KillingBite: Str-1 in DC Killing

STR 6

CON 4 TRAVEL Run

BODY 5 2423


MOVE 6

AKA: Poison Needles, Prison of Death Wished

Thought Holes

“God help me, but I don’t remember!”

Thought Holes


WILL 207 AV 5

PRE 8 DV 4

REF 4 ARMOR 3

DEX 4 HITS 25


STR 6

CON 4 TRAVEL As host

BODY 5 2423


MOVE 6

They cause Alzheimer’s, or something similar: they eat memories and can destroy an entire personality. It is

Lost Rawmel


15

possible that cultists may summon them to “empty” a person before taking over the body.

AKA: Mind Eater, Morpheus’ Bastard

Servant Races

Dead Nymphs of Ereboth

“A squamous mockery of a woman, lank-limbed and lank-haired with webbed hands—or claws—filmy batrachian eyes, and flabby putrescences hanging off spikes, all leading a trail of slithery ash.”

Dead Nymphs of Ereboth


WILL 207 AV 5

PRE 8 DV 4

REF 4 ARMOR 3

DEX 4 HITS 25


STR 6

CON 4 TRAVEL Run, swim

BODY 5 24235

StealthPerceptionClimblingConcealmentIllusion

MOVE 6

AKA: Givers of Pleasure, Death Angels

Djunit

Djunit


WILL 2-7 AV 5

PRE 8 DV 4

REF 4 ARMOR 3

DEX 4 HITS 25


STR 6


BODY 5 2423


MOVE 6

AKA: Hell’s Peacock, Flying Servant

Formless Young of Urgren

“A waxen monstrosity with iridescent cellular congeries: a sticky askew mottled colossus that reformed pseudopods and reshaped itself moment by moment.”

The Formless Young do change in size and shape, but are not nearly as formless as (say) the Ooze of a Thousand Eyes

Formless Young of Urgren


WILL 8 AV 5

PRE 14 DV 4

REF 6 ARMOR 3

DEX 3 HITS 25

TECH 4 Attack Tentacle strike: 12DC Normal

STR 12


BODY 20 2423


MOVE 16

AKA: Children of Pain, Changeable Ones, Mottled Paw

Ooze Of A Thousand Eyes.

Ooze of a Thousand Eyes


WILL 2-7 AV 5

PRE 8 DV 4

REF 4 ARMOR 3

DEX 4 HITS 25


STR 6


BODY 5 2423


MOVE 6

Servants Of Ghazlik

“A hideous pus-spitting cylinder of fluctuating size, that tapered at the far end as if infinitely long; its ropy


16

tentacles appeared and disappeared as though they were only sometimes protruberances in this dimension.”

Servants of Ghazlik

INT 11 Hum Cost 1d6/2d6+1

WILL 8 AV 9

PRE 14 DV 7

REF 6 ARMOR 9

DEX 3 HITS 100

TECH 4 Attack Tentacle stroke: 12DC NormalPus: 5 DC Killing, Armor Piercing

STR 12

CON 15 TRAVEL Flight, teleportation

BODY 20 2423


MOVE 6

AKA: Beast of Five Dimensions, Puddle of Depth

Shambling Constellations

“In the darkness, a constellation of sparks like distant galaxies flexed and moved in a mockery of human form. Then I screamed, and knew no more until I awoke, alone, my companions gone. I have not seen them to this day.”

Shambling Constellations

INT 4 Hum Cost 1d6/2d6+1

WILL 5 AV 5

PRE 13 DV 4

REF 7 ARMOR 3

DEX 6 HITS 25

TECH 5 Attack Strike: 7 DC KillingBite: Str-1 in DC Killing

STR 7

CON 9 TRAVEL Shamble

BODY 10 2423


MOVE 4

AKA: Stalker from the Skies, Starborn

Slaphins

“It seemed at first a mannequin, such as one finds in clothing stores, and then it moved, and moved again. I

struck at it with the axe and severed its hand but saw no bone or blood or muscle, only pale undifferentiated flesh.”

Slaphins

INT 3 Hum Cost 0/1d6+1

WILL 6 AV 9

PRE 9 DV 7

REF 5 ARMOR 5

DEX 4 HITS 100

TECH 6 Attacks Strike: 5 DC normalWeapons: As wielded

STR 5

CON 10 TRAVEL Run

BODY 10 42223

BrawlStealthPerceptionClimblingConcealment

MOVE 8

AKA: The mannikins, the smooth men, the Plastic Guard

Snow Leeches

“The snow had been falling steadily and we were all encrusted with it until we gave up. Then the coating covering Williams began to turn a tinge of red, and we were concerned—but when it moved with a faint hideous crackling sound and covered his eyes, we were horrified. He clawed at his face—we struggled to help—but it was as solid as ice. It turned the colour of blood and fell off. Williams was dead; by the time we thought to look at it, it was gone. Jenkins thought he saw a shape greatly like Williams flying up and then dispersing.”

Snow Leeches

INT 1 Hum Cost 0/1d6-1

WILL 2 AV 5

PRE 3 DV 4

REF 2 ARMOR 1

DEX 1 HITS 25

TECH 0 Attacks Strike: 2DC Killing, often in armor

STR 0

CON 1 TRAVEL Fall

BODY 5 4 Stealth

MOVE 1

AKA:


17

Winged Servant

“There was the sound of great rubbery wings flapping and a stench of sugar and rot, and from the sky descended a beast that no human mind can comprehend: the memory is as slippery as a fish no matter how I try to grasp it, no matter how I approach it; it was not fish nor fowl or simian nor bat nor decaying corpse, and yet any of these might seem as appropriate. I remember fur—or loathesome short tendrils—when I grasped the fur in my unwilling hands and gasped out, ‘Fly!’ I know that it bore me to the mainland for that was where I awoke.”

Winged Servant

INT 1 Hum Cost 2/1d6+1

WILL 2 AV 8

PRE 10 DV 7

REF 4 ARMOR 3

DEX 4 HITS 30

TECH 2 Attacks Claws: 4 DC Killing

STR 7

CON 4 TRAVEL Run (6), flight(20)

BODY 5 54

StealthPerception

MOVE 3/10

These repellent beasts are often used as steeds or as messengers. They cannot speak human tongues but understand them all.

Minor Servant: They are often associated with worshippers of Nyethardiri.

AKA: Angels.

Unutterable Creatures

No characteristics are given for these, as they are beyond human ken. All Unutterable should have a Presence of at least 20.

Abagug

Described in certain texts as the dung beetle of the Unutterable Ones, gatherer of waste and some think the embodiment of entropy.

Ahlenra

Fertility, eater of the dead. A creature of hot jungles and desert, Ahlenta was worshipped in ancient Egypt as a fertility goddess and in America as the eater of the dead.

Cwoog

Reflections over realtiy. Use icy lakes to call him on nights when Fomalhaut and the full moon both are reflected in the lake’s surface. Reptilian and insectile both but with nothing soft about him. Has given spells to worshippers (call Djunit, Bind Djunit, summon Ooze, curse of ooze).

Ereboth

Degredation, indulgence. A bloated spiny toad-like being, attended by his nymphs. Ereboth represents degradation and indulgence.

Ereboth often has cults associated with him, and sends his nymphs to help. Non-lethal contact with them is supposed to be quite pleasurable.

Ghaslik

Creation, change. Often attended by winged servamts of some kind, Ghaslik (or Ghazlik) is a movement-less artist. When necessary, it will squeeze off a portion of itself that becomes a Servant of Ghazlik. Often worshipped by artists themselves.

Gorentatagh

Unhealty desires, obsession.

Gutt-Sassassim

Originally believed to be the “good” version of Sassassim (hence the name).

Lliukan

Growth, parasitism. The insectile Lliukan is often seen as some kind of mosquito or parasite, worshipped because he can control crops and worldly goods.

Lost Rawmel, Collector Of Faces

Also in this section; it is possible that both forms are simply avatars of something worse.


18

Mesaudh

Control, order, right angles. A favorite of fascists.

Nyethardiri

The Traveling Man, the spirit of change and a kind of decay or entropy. (Not to be confused with Lost Rawmel, although some cults have conflated them.)

Sassassillim

Sulg-Yadod

Tchochituatl

Darkness of the heart, evil intent.

Urgren

Adventures

These are more adventure seeds than full adventures, but I hope they’re useful.

The Echo Out of Time

An ethnopharmacologist gets hold of an old drug that promises to turn the imbiber into a god—figuring this is something like PCP or a hallucinogen, he starts the analysis.

One odd thing happens during the analysis: During the LD50 trials, he notices an odd thing: One morning he comes in and one of the rats’ cages is filled with, well, dead rat, as if something had torn a rat apart--but the experimental rat is still there, identical to yesterday (except of course for having gore on it from being in the same cage). He attributes it to animal rights activists and drops the animal from the test group.

The rat escaped from a rat-proof cage and was never found again.

Eventually he decides the time has come for a human trial. As an ethical researcher, he takes it himself. After a brief period of hallucination during which he had the

experience of going back in time, looking at things in history (though the vast majority of the hallucination was spent in prehistory, during which he got a glimpse of elder creatures and then it became all geometric patterns, though he somehow knew that humanity lived on the curves and other things in the angles...)

He goes to an investigator to look up the history he “saw” and discovers it’s all accurate. And that he is now mentioned in the oldest historical records.

When the investigator goes to look, they discover that he is no longer in the oldest records, he is now in a more recent record. And then a more recent. Almost as if an echo of his journey is traveling up through time.

When the echo gets to the modern era, pictures can be seen in newspapers, etc. It is him, and not just someone with his name.

The investigators will rule out tampering with the records.

It is a Mythos entity that is coming to take his place, much as the rat was replaced. Can the investigators figure out a way to stop it?.

Shambler in the Stairwell

There is a house with an odd history; the adventurers are called upon to investigate it by the inheritor.

House was built by odd relative, plans called for seven pillars of black basalt in the foundation. Odd deaths occurred to workmen during the time of building; house was abandoned before final interior finishing work was done, because owner was killed “in a particularly brutal and odd way.”

Stairwell contains a Constellation Shambler which can manifest in the evenings. This wouldn’t actually be a problem except for (a) growth of the cities have brought the once-isolated home to the edge of town and (b) the stars are nearly right for the shambler to become fully evident.

Fire Flies

“Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” Proverbs, 6:27

Spontaneous human combustion is a price one pays for making a deal with certain Mythos entities. The catch is that you need never use the spell you’ve learned at all; it merely needs to be in your head, like a song you can’t quite get rid of. Eventually you heat up and burn, like a long pork candle.

Imagine the investigators discovering not one, not two, but three human combustions in the course of a month. They all turn out to have had some connection with


19

someone—call him Chester, though his online nym is Lucifex Malifer. It turns out that Chester has been putting the spell into things that he releases as viruses—as screen savers, in fact. Stare at it too long and it takes root in your head. In a dream sometime, you’ll say, “Yes” to the agreement and then it’s too late.

And Chester has learned of a new Windows exploit he can use...

The Dead of Winter

People are being found dead, frozen solid. Homeless people are the first. They move, if left frozen: but leave behind only a puddle if put in a warm place to thaw, and reappear elsewhere.

The Mark of the Beast

Andy Jenks is a pornographer. He sells things that would make your maiden aunt blush, and probably you, too. He lives by two simple precepts: “There’s nothing people won’t do for money,” and “No matter what you do, someone’s gonna pay to see it done.”

Andy has found a way to put marks on people that only he (and certain sensitives) can see. Andy doesn’t know that those people turn into what they like to watch. (Or does he?)

Frameworks

Why does this group of PCs keep running into monsters?

I mean, it’s fine if you want to run a single adventure; then it could be anything (vampires are a conspiracy between the werewolves and ghuls, because vampires of obviously impossible—whatever you want), but why have a campaign?

It’s a long conspiracy

In this case, the PCs have a sufficiently strong motivation to follow A to B, B to C, and so on until the Big Bad Guy. A lot of the old Chaosium campaigns in print follow this principle.

An interesting variant is troupe-style play. A group of cops discovers A, which leads to B, and then to J. A set of academics discovers C, which leads to D and then to J. A set of seamen discovers E, which leads to F and then G; a set of firefighters finds H, which leads to I and then J. The seamen may never come in again, but at J the players have a cop, an academic, and a firefighter each to follow to K, L

and so on. This does overcome some of the problems with high character mortality.

The organization

Somewhere is an organization that knows about this stuff. They send the PCs.

This is the real problem Delta Green was created to face. It works well, but is beyond the scope of this (short) document.

“I represent Mr. Smith...”

The third possibility is to have one or two characters in common betweem adventures, but the rest are new. (This is harder to do with leveled systems, but should be no problem in Fuzion.) For instance, the walthy man and the reporter gather a set of people who will handle the problem, then move on to the next problem.

This is similar to the organization, but supports troupe-style play.

Using Other RPG Resources

This supplement was inspired by Norbert Franz’s BRP to Fuzion notes, and I recommend those to you if you want to convert characters from BRP to Fuzion. See his notes at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fuzionforum/files/Conversions%20to%20FUZION/Re vised%20Conversion%20Notes%202.doc.

Norbert’s conversion is a general conversion, but there is a difference in skills between Call of Cthulhu and other BRP games. Call of Cthulhu makes a point that characters are not allowed to have more than 100% in skills. Dividing the CoC skill rankings by 15 gives a fair estimate of the character’s/creature’s AV in that skill.

A couple of extra notes not covered by Norbert:

Q How do I convert Armor?

A Values for Armor translate directly. The BRP and Fuzion damage scales are quite different, but the figures provided for damage stopped by Armor are roughly compatible.

Q What is a creature’s Move?

A A character’s (CoC) Move is essentially its Run, and may vary with individuals. Divide it in half to get the character’s (Fuzion) Move.

Q What about Damage?

A Don’t translate weapon damages; use the damages given in the various Fuzion plug-ins. When converting BRP


20

monster damages, try this rule of thumb: Calculate the average damage done by a roll, halve that, and assign that many DCs in damage to the Fuzion version. (Damage is killing damage, not stun damage.) For some of the monsters, you will have to convert to Kills.

Example: The Cthadran has claws, a tail, and a Damage Bonus of +5d6. The claws do 1d6+5d6, or 6d6; the average for 6d6 is 21 points; this will kill Joe Normal in BRP. The Fuzion version does 10 DC in damage, which will kill Joe Normal in Fuzion.

Q I don’t like that Damage conversion—have another suggestion?

A Yes. Take the average damage done by the BRP monster (10.5 for a 1d20 attack), double it to reflect that Fuzion PCs generally have a higher number of hit points, and assign a number of DC with that average damage. For example, a 1D20 attack has an average roll of 10.5; doubling that gives 21, which is the average for 6DC of damage.

Q How do magic points translate?

A Magic points translate directly to Soul points. Spells work exactly as they do in CoC, except that magic-points-to-power comparisons become Soul points versus Resistance.

Q How do Sanity losses translate?.

A. Because Tekeli-li! uses modifiers and multiple dice, the distributions of results are often different: rolls will have a higher minimum or cluster closer to the average. Refer to the following chart for examples.

Die Average

Roll Tekeli-li! Equivalent

1d2 1.5 1d2 (Roll 1D6: odd, 1; even 2)

1d3 2 1d3 (Roll 1D6, divide result in half, rounding up)

1d4 2.5 1d6 - 1

1d6 3.5 1d6

1d8 4.5 1d6+1

1d10 5.5 1d6+1d3

1d12 6.5 2d6

1d20 10.5 3d6

QWhat about Hero/Champions?

AThe generic rules for converting have been posted on the WWW in a number of places. I prefer the version given in Bubblegum Crisis, Before and After, which is extracted and in a message to the Animania Anime Role-Playing List (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/animaniarpgl/

message/4711), and Steve Peterson’s comment from the original FAQ and now available through http://www.tufw.net/what_is_fuzion.htm)

Primary stats:

Conversion from Hero

INT = INT/3 TECH = (DEX + INT)/6

WILL = EGO/3 CON = greater of (PD + ED)/4 or CON/3

PRE = PRE/3 STR = STR/3 (or, for supers, STR/5)

REF = OCV

BOD = STUN/5 DEX = DEX/3

MOVE = Inches/1.5 Fuzion derived stats calculated as normal Fuzion options & system

Perk

• Beautiful/Handsome = comeliness gives +1Skills:

• Familiarity = level 1, base skill = level 3, each extra level gives +1 “All you need to do to convert Skills is remember the magic 3 modifier; add 3 to Hero System skill levels to get Fuzion Skill Levels, or subtract 3 from Fuzion Skill Levels to get Hero System Skill Levels.

“Hero System skills are essentially based at -3 (familiarity is an 8 or less; using an unfamiliar weapon is -3 OCV), while Fuzion is based at 0, hence the magic modifier of 3.”

Fuzion weapons & equipment

• Personal armor KD to 50 = Resistant PD• Personal armor KD 51+ : ((KD-50)/15)+50= Resistant

PD• Other KD = As above, but resistant PD x 2.• SDP = BODY x 5 Weapon Damage = DC WA = OCV

Mod

Designer Notes

I was reading a lot of Lovecraft and then I ran across Norbert’s conversion rules of BRP to Fuzion. They intrigued me, so I thought I would extend those notes to Fuzion. I’m not sure this is needed nowadays, with Trail of Cthulhu available, but a free supplement is still a free supplement.

There were a couple of other interesting aspects. First of all, CoC is a low-key, gritty, often desperate, system. Characters are not in control of the world, and this extends


21

right down to character creation, which is largely random. Fuzion is broader and much more optimistic: characters are in control of their world. The mechanics of the two are opposed, and the scale of skills and attributes in Fuzion is much more compressed.

I think it’s noteworthy that the average human is in the middle of the BRP scale for humans (10 or 11 in a range of 3-18) while the average human is skewed far to one side in Fuzion (2 in a range of 1-7).

I’ve added several significant chunks to the Fuzion mechanics. For one thing, several of the characteristics I’ve added are beyond the player’s control, and the line between skill and characteristic is blurred.

For Sanity, I wanted a mechanism that gets steadily more difficult to beat, yet it must be possible to fail even at the very beginning and it must be possible to succeed even at the very end. Some kind of reasonably large scale should be used, so that the feel of eroding sanity is maintained. Human max of 7 is assumed, and for now I’ll assume 3d6 method of skill rolls. The mechanism should keep to the Fuzion standard of high roll = good.

And I wanted a Fuzion mechanic, not one lifted directly from CoC.

I toyed with using Presence attacks as a madness/sanity mechanism, but it’s a number that’s tied to the creature, not to the player character. In Lovecraft’s stories, seeing the ghouls can shake you up so much that some small event later can cause a relapse; with the Presence mechanic, that’s not possible. (Unless the effect of losing a presence attack is to eat away at your WILL+Concentration—I liked that, but it seems to go counter to a lot of Fuzion philosophy.) Still, I’ve set creature Presence values at levels that should make this kind of reaction possible if you don’t want to use the Madness mechanic. Creatures should have PRE values ranging from 8 to 20+.

Should there be a Rationalization skill? I chose to have one because Concentration skill doesn’t exactly represent what happens in the stories. You can replace the use of Rationalization with Concentration, but you should up the default Madness from 13 to 15.

Madness is not under the control of the player, which was important to me in keeping the feel of the source material. An “average” human with a WILL of 2 and a Rationalization of 0 makes the first Madness roll at 2+3d6 vs. 13, and needs 11+ to succeed (50% chance of failure). A player who maxes out on WILL (value of 7) makes the first Madness roll at an acting value of 7 vs. a Madness of 13, and needs 6+ to succeed (4.4% chance of failure).

Making Rationalization difficult to buy was conceived as a way to minimize character optimization. As it is, PRE and WILL are very important; I would not be surprised to see some players always go for levels of 7 in each of those. An

“optimized” character would probably have Int, Will, and Pre of 7 each and levels of 2 or 3 in the other primary stats. If Concentration is used as the skill involved, then for 3 extra OP the character will increase Madness only one in 216 rolls. It seems just too easy then.

The Humanity characteristic was provided in Fuzion without hints as to how one loses Humanity. I originally had all sorts of convolutions involving rolling against (100-Humanity)/3, and that looked to me too difficult to calculate.

Therapy here is more effective than in CoC (where one only gains 1d3 for a successful month of therapy), but the fact that you can burn Humanity and that I’m using generally larger average die rolls means that Humanity should bounce up and down more. The more Mythos you learn, though, the lower your maximum Humanity is.

It’s also difficult controlling how quickly characters learn Mythos skill. They need to learn some and in the source material it’s clear that not all spells are learned through insanity (though insanity can grant those insights). My compromise here puts it in the control of the players: they must want to spend the points or they get no Mythos skill. The madness Complications are simply a way of paying the points in the context of the Fuzion advantage/disadvantage system.

You can be a really powerful Mythos sorceror—you just won’t be sane. A character with WILL, INT, PRE, Mythos, and Rationalization all at 7 can hover at 0 Humanity for a long time, being mentally fragile, but since the Madness checks become AV 14 +3d6 vs. DV 21, about half the time he or she will lose Humanity, and it’s not that far from 0 to -10 and permanent insanity.

I think the easiest thing to do is borrow wholesale from the Chaosium material, but I want to include enough information so you don’t need to do that: material that could be dropped into a CoC game or replace it.

Oh—Tekeli-li! was the cry of the strange beings that lived “At The Mountains Of Madness.”

To Do

I’d like to finish the creatures of the Mythos, expand the magic, and really write up the sample adventures. The system as a whole needs playtesting.


22

Index

A

Abagug 17Absent 3Affari dei Mostros 7Ahlenra 17armor, converting 19B

Bestiary 10Blasphemous Judges 7Blight crop 8Bone Maggots 13Brown Book 7C

Call of Cthulhu® 2, 20Call storm 8Circuits Never Rust 8conspiracy 19converting

armor 19Damage 19Move 19

Create storm 8Cults 9Curdle 8Cwoog 17Cyclopes of the Sea 7D

D20 Madness 3Dead Nymphs of Ereboth 15Death Angels 15Debt of Facelessness 8Djunit 15Dream of Hermes 8E

Echoes from Time 13Eidetic Memory 3Emperor of Mist and Sand 8Ereboth 17Eruditio Mortis 7Experience 6F

Failure to Thrive 8Formless Young of Urgren 15Frameworks 19Fuzion™ 2, 4

experience 6

Skills 3Mythos 3Rationalization 4

G

Ghaslik 17Ghuls 11going mad 4Gorentatagh 17Gutt-Sassassim 17H

Humanity 3losses 5

I

Incendiary Death 8Inflame Desire 8Summon 9Interlock option 6J

Jhotas 14L

Liber Mortis 7Lliukan 17Lost Rawmel 14, 17M

Madness 3madness 4Magic 6, 8Mesaudh 18Moss from Tirnos 11Motifs 7Mythos 3N

Invite 8Nekrognosis 7Nyethardiri 18O

Oath of Ghazlik. 8Ooze of a Thousand Eyes 15organization 19Other RPG Resources 19Owl Fragments 7P

Place Soul 8Q

Quoti 12R

Rationalization 4


23

Royal Gesture of Ra 9S

Sassassillim 18Scorpions of Hadh 14sensitives 2Servants of Ghazlik 15Shambler in the Stairwell 18Shanbling constellations 16Shield of the Dead 9Signs of the Red Worm 7Skeletal Block 9Snow leeches 16Solomon’s Succubus 9Soul 3Soul of a New Machine 9Spell 8Steal Body 9Steal Spirit 9Sulg-Yadod 18T

Tchochituatl 18The Corpse Copse 8The Mark of the Beast 19Thought Holes 14Tomes 7Trade Minds 9Traffick with Angels 7U

Urgren 18W

Winged servant 17Wolves of Nyethardiri 8


24


john mcmullen a supplement for fuzion

Documents